LOOKS GOOD Design Magazine » Tony Chen

The Evolution of Corporate Identity Design

Tony Chen — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 08:52:51 +0000

I have been always fascinated with the meanings behind corporate logos and the messages that they deliver. The logo, like a nametag, define the personality of a corporation and the effectiveness of its design has become an integral element of the companies that they portray. Famous brands are instantly recognized by millions of people. Some of these include fast-food chains such as McDonald’s or consumer electronics such as Apple computers. In order to discover the true meaning behind these famous logos, we have to probe deeper into their design history and how they have evolved over the years. This article lists some of the world’s most famous corporate logos and attempts to discovery the history behind each one. If you would like me to include a logo, please leave a comment below!

Audi

The four rings in the logo have nothing to do with the Olympic rings, but is the emblem of one of the oldest car manufacturers in Germany. It represents the 1932 merger of four independent motor-vehicle manufacturers: Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. Together with the NSU Motorenwerke AG, which joined in 1969, these manufacturers are the origins of the present-day Audi AG. The company itself is over 100 years old. In September 2009, Audi released their new logo that we have come to know today which features an enhanced 3-dimensional aspect of the rings.

Apple Inc

Initially, the logo for Apple Computers depicted a small apple shape sitting under a tree with Apple Computer Co set into the frame of the picture. The first logo design was perceived to be way too complex and hard to view so the designers worked on the logo some years later and added a bite mark to represent the seduction of the customers and the marketplace in general. There are actually a lot of biblical references in the Apple logo design, for example the rainbow-colored apple is a reference to the story of Adam and Eve in which the apple signified the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The current iconic design we have come to known today is completely consistent with their product design scheme with its silver metallic sheen.

BBC

British graphic designer Abram Games was famous for creating BBC’s first identity which was nicknamed “Bat’s Wings”. This was then replaced by the BBC tv lettering in boxes located within a circle. Later on, BBC’s famous emblem was unveiled depicting the globe. The TV station also promoted its use of color by including references to the station identity, which acted as a reminder to the audience to buy a colour television set. The late 90′s brought a new approach to BBC’s brand and its logo was made more modern-looking.

FedEx

The modern FedEx logo is one of the most recognizable logos in the world. It was created in 1994 by Lindon Leader, as Senior Design Director at Landor Associates. In the same year, it was ranked by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the 8 best logos of the past thirty-five years – ranked amongst Apple, Coca-Cola, Nike, IBM, Starbucks, McDonald’s and Playboy. FedEx is a symbolic abbreviation of the company’s full name: Federal Express. A lot of people don’t notice this because at first glance, the FedEx corporate logo appears to be plain and simple, but there is something very cool about its design. An arrow pointing to the right can be seen in the negative space between the uppercase E and the x. The arrow symbolized forward movement and thinking in line with the company’s purpose and mission.

IBM

American graphic designer, Paul Rand’s trademark for International Business Machines (1956) was derived from an uncommonly used typeface called City Medium. Later on, it was redesigned into the IBM corporate logo, a powerful and unique company identity emerged as the slab serifs and shapes in between the negative spacing provided unity and uniqueness to the design. In the 1970′s the logo was updated again to evoke scan lines on video terminals, but the typeface remained consistent.

Kentucky Fried Chicken

The “Kentucky Fried Chicken” brand changed many since its conception in the early 1950′s. The brand was changed to the abbreviation KFC from the early 1990′s so as to move away from the unhealthy negative connotation of the word “fried”. The logo itself depicts the creator of KFC – Sanders himself. Unlike many other famous logos, KFC has kept remarkably consistent with its visual identity and has maintained the defining elements of Colonel Sander’s image while adapting to the visually evolving fast food chain industry. The current logo shows the amount of effort that KFC have made over the last few years to reboot the brand with energetic and dynamic designs to compete against other major fast-food chains such as Burger King or McDonald’s.

Kodak

Kodak is a widely-known American multinational public company known for producing and supplying the consumer public with photographic equipment and materials from disposable cameras to photographic film. In 1960, the company introduced the corner curl design. Although the letter K was preferred as it seemed a strong and bold letter, it was not introduced until the 1970′s along with the box design. Over the years, the typeface of the logo has also been updated to more contemporary fonts. In the 2000′s Kodak was forced to reinvent itself and that led to an update to the corporate identity – their new logo sports a distinctively shaped “a” and rounded sans-serif typeface.

MTV

In 1981, the popular New York City based American cable television network MTV was launched by Warner AmEx. To this day, MTV broadcasts a youth and pop culture and expanded to reality tv shows aimed at young people. The logo design crew at Manhattan Design first began to play around with just the letters MTV and created the flexible and innovative design that remained consistent today. The “M’ was initially built out of polka dots, wooden strips, red bricks, zebra stripes and even the yellow-and-black of a checkered taxi cab.

Pepsi

A young pharmacist named Caleb Bradham in 1893 started experimenting with different soft drink mixtures. In those days, many pharmacists served their customers refreshing homemade drinks. In 1898, Bradham bought the trade name “Pepsi Cola” for $100 from a competitor that had gone broke. At the same time Bradham’s neighbor, designed the first Pepsi logo. The beverage’s instant popularity led Bradham to channel his efforts to developing Pepsi-Cola into a real business. Over the decades, Pepsi has remained one of the world’s most famous brands alongside its main rival Coca-Cola. Over this time, Pepsi has also gone through major logo redesigns and modifications. Now we have come to know the iconic red, white and blue Pepsi globe that leaves an everlasting impression in the minds of people across the world.

The logos showcased in this article are registered trademarks of their respective corporations. Use of these logos here does not imply endorsement of the organizations by this site.

We have also recently made a Facebook page – if you would like these articles to keep coming, we would appreciate you liking our page. Check it out here at www.facebook.com/looksgd

30 Cool Photoshop Tutorials for Beginners

Tony Chen — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 11:06:24 +0000

Adobe Photoshop, an essential to any designer’s toolkit is probably the most popular graphics editing program out there. Photoshop is easy to learn and offers an extensive array of advanced tools to create some impressive and realistic compositions. All of these are free resources for budding graphics designers to learn basic to intermediate manipulations with this powerful graphics editing software. This article is a collection of some high quality Photoshop tutorials for beginners – this is a place to start.

How to Create a Nuclear Disaster Landscape

Recreating Bar Code By Using Photoshop

Create A Slow Motion Bullet Shot Effect

Making A Book Of Magical Playground Scene

Magnifying Glass In Photoshop

Create A Distressed Vector Typographic Poster Design

Create a Magical Flaming Heart Illustration in Photoshop

The Ultimate Wood Texture Tutorial

Create a Cool Wet Ink Typography Effect in Photoshop

Create A Spectacular Flaming Meteor Effect On Text

Text Inside Text Effect

Give Your Photos a Retro Comic Book Effect

Canvas texture imitation

Glass Ball Tutorial

Papercraft Text Effect

How to Create a Highly Detailed Hi-Tech Power Button

Vintage Polaroid Effect

Realistic wrinkled paper

Create A Surrealistic City Scene From Drawings And Photos

Create a Sleek, High-End Web Design from Scratch

Create 3D Typography effect in Photoshop

How To Create Bamboo In Adobe Photoshop

Making A Print Ready Business Card Using Only Photoshop

3D Grass Text Effect

Create a Shiny Earth with Photoshop 3D Layers

Realistic denim texture

Realistic View Tears On Face

Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop

Applying Design Engineering Skills in Photoshop

Magic lighting effect in Photoshop

How Do You Respond to Sex in Advertising?

Tony Chen — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 11:02:34 +0000

Over the past decade, provocative advertising has significantly increased as people have become increasingly concerned with their physical appearance. Advertising is, in fact, a multi-billion-dollar industry and today, advertisers are constantly thinking of new ways of communicating their messages to their audiences. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to avoid such impressions from advertising in print and digital media. The question here remains: how do YOU respond to sex in advertising?

Volvo. We’re just as excited as you.

Hansaplast long-lasting condoms

Coco De Mer erotic shop outdoor ad

Durex. No exit.

Capriccio : ladies hairdresser, Milano, Italy

Durex: Love is Blind

Another advert for Durex

The power of Viagra

Axe Essence deodorant bodyspray

Nikon S60— Powerful face detection

Good is Short – Short Film Festival

Condomi Vienna ultra-thin condoms

Bonus: Grilled Chicken Salads at Carl’s Jr. (Kim Kardashian)

You can see how the use of erotic imagery or sex appeal is extremely pervasive across different types of media in our culture today. Whether through suggestive images or clever slogans, creative advertisers create media that has profound impacts on our daily lives. What did you think about these adverts? Leave your comment below and don’t forget to check our our previous article: Smart Advertising – 30+ Bizarre and Creative Ads

Another 20 Unique Logo Designs

Tony Chen — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 13:49:15 +0000

As mentioned in the first logo showcase article 25 Awe-inspiring Logo Designs the logo is a hugely important aspect of a company’s commercial brand and its shapes, colors, fonts, and overall designs define their trademark or commercial brand. Due to the great success of the previous article, we present to you with 20 new and interesting logos for your design inspiration.

Iron Duck Logo

get wired Logo

CFO Cycling Team Logo

Silvia Logo

Ant Logo

Ant shaped logo designed by Alberto William

Horror Films Logo

Design created for Horror Films by Siah Design.

Killed Productions Logo

Mister Cutts Barber Shop Logo

Goodduck Logo

Design created by Badovsky Design for Goodduck

Steps Logo

Design created by Jason Sanzone

Catch 5 Logo

Wine House Logo

Minimal, memorable and elegant logo concept for wine company

LOOK Logo

Logo designed by Zain Zayan from India

Foot Logo

Logo design by Dalius Stuoka

Swing Studios Logo

Pause Logo

Logo designed by volkan

Spartan Golf Club Logo

Logo by Richard Fonteneau designed for Spartan golf club

Twins Logo

Creative logo with “2? instead of “N” designed by Action Designer

Sushi Logo

Sushi restaurant logo by Alen Pavlovi

B Logo

Creative bee inspired logo designed by William Patino

Amazing Coke Bottle Design

Tony Chen — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:27 +0000

His work has been featured on digg.com, The Dieline and many popular design blogs. Talented 18 year old Andrew Kim, a freshman at College for Creative Studies put together an impressive project for a coke bottle re-design that is both eco-friendly and innovative – reinventing packaging in a revolutionary way.

This is his midterm project for his second semester at College for Creative Studies

Renders / Graphics: Adobe Photoshop

(Click to enlarge)

Here are Andrew’s raw sketches from the project:

Via Andrew Kim

Visualizing the Most Economical Typeface

Tony Chen — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 07:27:20 +0000

I have always been a big fan of typography and recently I have came across this creative visualization of some commonly used typefaces. Designers Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth looked at ink usage of some popular typefaces, by drawing them by hand with ballpoint pens.

A selection of the most commonly used typefaces were compared for how economical they are with the amount of ink which they use at the same point size. Large scale renditions of the typefaces were drawn out with ballpoint pens, allowing the remaining ink levels to display the ink efficiency of each typeface.

The experiment was simple: a white wall and several ball points pens, hand drawing each one on a blank white wall. The contestants are: Garamond, Courier, Brush Script, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Comic Sans, Cooper Black and Impact.

And the results are shown below with the pens arranged in a simple bar chart:

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! After hand-drawing these typefaces on the wall, the pen used for Garamond had the most ink left. To sum up: save ink and the environment by using Garamond!

Via Matt Robinson

LOOKS GOOD Mobile (beta) Launched!

Tony Chen — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 13:24:49 +0000

By popular request, LOOKS GOOD Design Magazine has gone mobile and launched its mobile browser-friendly site today. You can now browse and comment on popular articles on-the-go and even share your favorite posts to your friends with an all-new mobile user-interface. Here is a quick tour of its features.

Credits to Brave New Code for the mobile theme.

Type looks.gd into your browser to begin!

You will automatically be redirected to the mobile-friendly site with the newest articles displayed first.

Tap the small arrow on the top right corner of a post to view its excerpt if you want to read it before the full article. Tap read this post to continue browsing the full article.

Here’s what an article looks like on your phone. To skip to the comments, there’s a handy link which allows you to.

Here you can read the comments, share the post via email, twitter or bookmark it for later. You can even leave your own comment below.

Tapping the arrow at the top right-hand corner of any page will reveal the main menu where you can browse the individual pages of LOOKS GOOD, view the RSS feed or contact me via e-mail.

You can also browse LOOKS GOOD by tags or categories.

Selecting a category will take you to a page where posted are sorted by the category.

If you are looking for a specific post, you can even search for it by tapping search at the top.

You can always revert to the normal website on your mobile device by toggling the switch at the bottom. You can always change it back and forth if you like.

Hope you guys enjoy browsing on-the-go! I’ve tested it to work fully on the iPhone, but let me know if there are any bugs for other mobile browsers by leaving a comment below. I would be interested to see what this looks like on Android-based browsers so leave a screenshot below if you can. Catch you guys later!

Eco-friendly Printing With Pencil Stubs

Tony Chen — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:45:46 +0000

This is a printer that runs completely on pencil stubs to print its documents – absolutely revolutionary with no use of ink cartridges at all. What makes this concept even more interesting is its use of an eraser to erase off the mistakes. This concept of green technology gives hope for a more sustainable future. Images after the break.

(Click to enlarge images)

Rollip – How to Apply Professional Photo Filters and Effects Online

Tony Chen — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 12:41:53 +0000

Rollip is an online service that allows users to apply filters and effects on their digital photos without any additional applications. Users can upload their photos to change its look and feel from over 40 filters ranging from 70′s Vintage to modern styles. Rollip was kind enough to offer the LOOKS.GD community with 15 premium accounts loaded with 30 credits for us to experiment and test out!

Enjoy and happy commenting!

Rollip.com has a very simple and user-friendly interface. Just sign up with your email address and you’re good to go.

To take you on a walk-through of the service, I have set up an account so I can apply this very cool pencil-sketch effect on a digital photo. Here you can see the result of the effect I applied in a matter of seconds:

As soon as you log in, you can browse through and select from a expansive range of digital photo effects including vintage, black/white filters, or even make your photos look like old Polaroids. To get the sketch-like effect like the one shown above, navigate to the Extreme Stylized effects and select the pencil sketch effect.

By clicking one of the previews, it will take you to a page where you can upload your photo. It will open a window for you to easily select the image to process and after a few surprisingly short moments, it will be uploaded to the site and processed.

After the image is uploaded, Rollip will show you a preview of the effect applied on the original photo. By pressing the Click here to process in high-quality button, Rollip will further refine and process your image again, applying the full high-quality effect.

Rollip is truly a remarkable tool for amateurs and professionals alike. It brings the best out of everyday digital photos right on the web and it has great potential to become a very powerful and widely used service. Never before has a professional service for photographers been so easy and versatile. I look forward to Rollip’s future developments and prospects and experiencing its many yet-to-be announced features.

LOOKS.GD is giving away free premium Rollip accounts loaded with 30 credits (original price US$5.98). Quantities are limited and they will be distributed on a first come first serve basis. To sign up for the sweepstakes, subscribe to our feed by email here. Enjoy!

Retro-style Rainbow Design Inspiration

Tony Chen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:39:35 +0000

Vibrant colors and light streaks have been widely used in modern design – from design for print to design for web – reflecting on the pop culture of the 70′s and 80′s. Its lively and eye-catching nature makes it an extremely effective and popular way to convey powerful messages across the media. While browsing through Flickr, I have compiled works from artists all around the world into this article to showcase this dynamic style of design at its best.